Mayweather vs. Cotto: 25 Bold Predictions for Before, During and After Fight

The ill health of boxing is a steady topic of conversation, but only the true curmudgeons among us could focus on that kind of negativity as the weekend of a major PPV fight approaches.

Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada Floyd Mayweather Jr., 42(26)-0, will challenge Miguel Cotto, 37(30)-2(2), for Cotto's WBA "super" world light middleweight title. Mayweather was the majority consensus number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world on the most recent Ring Magazine poll.

At 35, Mayweather appears to still be at the top of his game. But age, and the odds, catch almost every fighter eventually. Against a world class talent like Cotto, his fabled "O" is at some risk. 

Cotto meanwhile has been one of the sport's biggest stars for the better part of the last decade. This is the fight everybody wanted to see five years ago, when Mayweather was setting pay-per-view records with Oscar De La Hoya and Cotto was undefeated, too, and in the process of TKOing Zab Judah and beating Shane Mosley by unanimous decision.

Since that time, Cotto has suffered two brutal defeats, to Antonio Margarito in 2008 and to Manny Pacquiao in 2009. He has rebounded strongly, though, lifting the WBA light middleweight title from Yuri Foreman, then TKOing Ricardo Mayorga.

Fresh off from a December TKO victory over Antonio Margarito in Madison Square Garden, Cotto's star is is as bright as ever, even if questions remain over how much he still has in the tank. 

1. Undercard: Shane Mosley Will Try to Make It a Fight This Time

Saturday night's co-main event of Shane Mosley, 46(39)-7-1, versus Saul Alvarez, 39(29)-0-1, has not generated the kind of excitement and chatter you would expect from a matchup between a future first-ballot Hall of Famer and an undefeated 21-year-old world champion. 

That's because the 40-year-old Mosley's last performance against Manny Pacquiao was underwhelming in the extreme. Mosley got a taste of Pacman's power early, getting dropped in the third, and then spent the night on his bicycle, leaving the crowd less than thrilled. 

When Mosley-Alvarez was announced, he was hard not to wish the spot on the card could have gone to a younger, possibly hungrier fighter, who stood to gain more from the exposure. 

But this fight has potential. Mosley is going to be more confident against the 21-year-old Alvarez then he was against fellow veteran Pacquiao.

I don't think this is a case of Mosley just chasing one more big payday. I think he's going to show up looking to slay the young lion and write one more great chapter in his book.  

2. Undercard: Saul Alvarez Is Going to Beat Mosley and Look Good Doing It

My estimation of Alvarez is that he is a developing fighter who is still a long way from finding the boundaries of his talents. So far he has consistently met and exceeded each new step up in competition. 

Alvarez looked very good TKOing Kermit Cintron last November. But Kermit Cintron is no Shane Mosley. Even at 40, Mosley should be the toughest competition Canelo has ever faced. 

Mosley will show some old flashes of greatness against Alvarez on Saturday, but they will ultimately only serve to help make the younger fighter's victory more impressive. Alvarez is the naturally bigger man, fighting a man old enough to be his father. 

3. Undercard: Alvarez Will Emerge from the Weekend a Hot Property

Beating 40-year-old Shane Mosley on the Mayweather-Cotto pay-per-view is not going to propel Alvarez onto anybody's pound-for-pound top 10. But an impressive win in this high profile spot will make this already rising star one of the most marketable competitors in the sport.

If Alvarez beats Mosley on the undercard and Mayweather manages to remain undefeated against Cotto, then Alvarez becomes the most obvious plan B for Mayweather's next fight, should the big showdown with Manny Pacquiao continue to be impossible to make.

Perhaps a more likely next opponent for Alvarez would be Miguel Cotto. Even if Cotto loses to Mayweather, he will remain ranked above Alvarez at 154.

Cotto-Alvarez would be a terrific fight for Cotto's next return to Madison Square Garden. It would be a perfect east coast debut for the young Mexican star.  

4. President Obama Will Be Referenced During Floyd Mayweather's Entrance

To me the highlight of Floyd Mayweather Jr's "Speaking Out" interview on HBO with Michael Eric Dyson has got to be when he said he would have President Obama carry his belt to the ring for him if he ever fought Manny Pacquiao. 

I mean, that's got to be one of the most hilarious things Mayweather has ever said. And, I have to say, I'm not entirely sure he doesn't believe it's true.

One can only imagine how the Secret Service would feel about this. Remember, they didn't like it when Bill Clinton would do his slow jog to McDonald's for an egg McMuffin and hash brown combo. 

5. But Instead He'll Come to the Ring with 50 Cent

To judge by the most recent season of HBO's 24/7, rapper 50 Cent remains Floyd Mayweather's official celebrity BFF. The two enjoyed some time shopping together on the most recent episode.

50 Cent, of course, has famously stated that he's a Republican. So at least Mayweather is bi-partisan in considering potential escorts to the ring.  

6. In General, the Stars Will Be Out Saturday Night

Major prize fights in Vegas have long drawn celebrities like flames draw moths. Everybody wants to be part of the fight scene when there are enough cameras around to record it. 

Boxing needs big, high profile nights like this to keep the sport at least somewhere on the cultural radar. It's too bad there isn't more carry over into the week-to-week sports cycle, where ESPN continually preempts Friday Night Fights for car racing, which isn't even a real sport.  

7. Manny Pacquiao's Name Is Going to Come Up a Few Times

We've seen it over and over again for a couple of years now. Whenever one of these guys has a fight, the other guy is the ghost hanging over it all, that nobody will shut up about. 

And because Pacquiao's 2009 demolition of Cotto is viewed as among the top performances of his career, Cotto-Mayweather will provide some fresh fodder for the next inevitable round of "will they or won't they" that will play out so long as Mayweather wins as expected Saturday and Pacquiao manages to survive against undefeated Timothy Bradley on June 9. 

For HBO, Saturday's event will hopefully be part of a developing narrative, one that leads to the ultimate pay-off of Mayweather-Pacquiao, the best selling PPV of all time. 

8. Nobody Working for HBO Is Going to Be as Bluntly Honest as Teddy Atlas

So they will do a little bit of speculating during the HBO broadcast Saturday about the possible Mayweather-Pacquiao super fight, and back stage they will be crossing their fingers and hoping it will keep building in that direction. 

But I think a lot of fans are like me and they will be rolling their eyes every time the possibility of Mayweather-Pacquiao gets mentioned. Yes, I would love to see that fight. But I no longer expect to. 

I've made the same essential argument Teddy Atlas makes in this clip from last week's broadcast of Friday Night Fights in a number of my own columns. I'd like to be wrong. 

9. Hopefully the "Larry Merchant Incident" Will Go Ignored and Un-Commented Upon

Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s fourth-round knockout of Victor Ortiz last September was among the more controversial in recent memory.

My own contention is that Ortiz is the one who lost his head and turned it into a street fight. At that point, Mayweather was within his rights to go for a quick, brutal finish by any legal means available. 

But it was Larry Merchant's job to pursue the line of questioning that he pursued in this clip. Mayweather's berating of him was unprofessional behavior for a champion sportsman. 

At the same time, Merchant's final rejoinder was as cringe-worthy as anything I've ever seen. I mean, on the one hand, I know Merchant is old school and men really were more manly back in his youth. Still, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Larry Merchant from 50 years ago isn't going to kick any professional fighter's ass, never mind the top pound-for-pound guy in the world.   

One of my great frustrations as a boxing writer is that the sport often has an easier time getting attention for press conference confrontations than it does for the true moments of greatness that occur between the ropes. 

On the other hand, given the spectacle that Mayweather-Ortiz became, perhaps this really was the best possible ending, in pure dramatic terms. 

10. Pedro Diaz Will Have a Brilliant Game Plan for Cotto

Pedro Diaz was an amateur sports legend as a trainer to the Cuban national team. But he left his home country to test himself in the professional game. In Miguel Cotto, he believes he has a fighter he can take to the very top.

In his interviews, Diaz has the focused intensity of an army general. "Invincible men only exist in movies," he said on 24/7. In a BoxingScene interview yesterday when he sounded similarly confident.

This is the kind of opportunity Diaz could only have dreamed about years ago stuck in the Cuban amateur system. If he can guide his fighter to an upset over the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter he will jump onto the short list of elite trainers with names like Freddy Roach and Robert Garcia. 

11. Mayweather Won't Be Distracted by the Looming Prison Sentence

Less than a month after Saturday night's huge pay-per-view event, Floyd Mayweather will enter jail to begin a 90 day hitch stemming from an incident with the mother of his children. 

Mayweather's public statements on the matter have been recalcitrant to the extreme. He told Michael Eric Dyson on the Speaking Out special that he was really innocent and had simply been forced to take a plea bargain to spare his children a trial.

By further comparing himself to Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X (because they both also went to jail) Mayweather indicated that the only lesson he seems to have learned from the situation is that some people in the world are just out to get Floyd Jr. 

And that kind of dramatic, me and my people against the world attitude seems to be a pretty constant worldview for Mayweather. His life seems to have always had its soap opera-like qualities and he long ago developed the ability to survive and thrive amid it. 

No matter what has ever been going on in his life, he has always remained entirely focused and prepared as a prize fighter. In the manner of a great, self-made business CEO, Mayweather never forgets the product that built the empire, his ability to fight at the highest level. 

12. Cotto Will Start More Carefully Than He Did Against Pacquiao

In his fight with Manny Pacquiao, Cotto started out aggressive and some people feel it might have been a tactical mistake. I can personally see the temptation to be drawn into that kind of fight with Pacquiao. When the alternative is sitting back and letting him come after you like a hurricane, it makes some sense to try to impose yourself early the way Cotto did.

But ultimately it just made him more vulnerable to Pacquiao's explosive, multi-angled attack.  

Mayweather is a much less aggressive fighter than Pacquiao, and that should mean that Cotto will have the opportunity to work on a strategy, rather than simply getting drawn into one flurrying exchange after another. 

13. Cotto Will Once Again Show That 154 Is a Comfortable Weight for Him

Many of Cotto's biggest fans will try to partly explain away his performance against Pacquiao by claiming that he was drained from coming down to Pacquiao's 145 pound catch weight. I tend to think this point gets over-stated. Cotto weighed in for his fight against Joshua Clottey five months earlier at 146. 

What I do think is undeniable is that Cotto looks better than he has in years fighting now at 154 pounds. He showed tremendous endurance and durability in maintaining his pace against Antonio Margarito last December. 

Unless he gets caught with some shots, expect him to be on his feet and still looking strong until the closing bell Saturday. 

14. Mayweather Will Carry His Speed Up to Junior Middleweight

Saturday night Mayweather will challenge for a world title in his fifth weight class. He began his professional career fighting at 130 pounds. 

In every division, speed has been a big part of his game.  As he has aged, observers have watched, waiting to see the first signs of that speed diminishing.

At 35 years old, fighting 24 pounds heavier then where he began, it is quite likely that Mayweather has lost a half step or so.

Either way, he's going to be much quicker than Cotto. His speed will be a huge tactical advantage.  

15. Cotto Is Going to Have Trouble Hitting Mayweather Early

It might be fair to ask, just how "bold" is this prediction? After all, everybody who fights Mayweather has trouble hitting him. 

But I think it will be the story of the early rounds. Mayweather will start quickly, trying to force Cotto to make a mistake. Cotto will have to make his adjustments and I think it will take him rounds to really start to get any kind of timing down to catch up with Mayweather.

16. Mayweather Is Not Going to Have Trouble Hitting Cotto

Miguel Cotto is a great fighter, but he's not exactly hard to hit. I think Mayweather will have a lot of success picking him off early, as Cotto tries to find a rhythm that will allow him to handle Mayweather's speed advantage. 

This is the part of the fight where I think Cotto will be in the most danger. If Cotto can survive through the early rounds without getting too badly damaged, the fight has the potential to become interesting. 

17. Cotto Is Going to Remain Patient

I expect Cotto to fall behind early, but to resist the temptation to panic and risk making a really big mistake. I think he will take his lumps and keep working like a stoic behind his jab, looking to keep the pressure on and turn the terrain in his own favor.

Cotto is going to go into this fight expecting it to be a tremendous challenge. So if things get really hard, really quickly, that's not going to discourage him. It's not going to surprise him or frustrate him.

Most importantly, it's not going to provoke him into impetuously abandoning his game plan. 

18: Cotto Is Going to Trap Mayweather on the Ropes Eventually

As Cotto remains patient he will find his timing, Mayweather will slow a little bit, and some things will start to go in Cotto's favor. I expect that eventually he will begin to have some success trapping Mayweather on the ropes. 

Even against the ropes Mayweather will be dangerous. He will employ his excellent head and shoulder movement and will use his lead elbow to block (and possibly) push Cotto. He will still be in a good position to score on Cotto. 

But Cotto will have Mayweather in position to score, too. If Cotto can manage to trap Mayweather on the ropes, he will be able to make it a competitive fight. 

19. Cotto Is Going to Attack Mayweather's Body Until It Pays Off

Miguel Cotto is among the sport's top body punchers. The linked video is not a body-punching highlight specifically, but any highlight reel of Cotto is going to feature a lot of body work. 

Consistently getting into position to unload on Mayweather's torso is not going to be easy. Even in close range Mayweather is exceptional at angling his body and taking away most of his opponent's targets.

But if Cotto can manage to hammer Mayweather's body with even a handful of decent combinations it will slow him down. The entire nature of the fight could change then.

20. Cotto Will Close the Gap in the Middle Rounds

After falling way behind in the first part of the fight Miguel Cotto is going to hang tough, stay patient and fight his way back into contention. Mayweather will make the tactical mistake of not pressing his advantages and trying to inflict serious damage when the opportunity is there, instead contenting himself to coast along and put rounds in the bank.

Cotto will protect himself enough while losing the early rounds to be in good shape to start making his move around the fifth or sixth, as his commitment to a pressure jab and steady body attack start to finally slow Mayweather down a little.

When that starts to happen, I expect Cotto to finally grow more aggressive, looking to force Mayweather to engage him toe-to-toe. After playing a little bit of the waiting game, he will need to start fighting more aggressively, looking to start stealing rounds through pure work rate, if nothing else. 

To beat Mayweather, at some point during the fight Cotto will have to start taking chances. He will have to risk winding up in bad positions if he wants to really catch up to the defensive wizard.  

21. The Championship Rounds Will Be a Fight

Miguel Cotto has been on both the losing and winning end of late-round excitement. He was TKO'd by Antonio Margarito in 11 and returned the favor in the rematch, stopping Margarito after 10. 

Cotto has a long history of closing opponents out late. Time and again throughout his career he has been able to turn it up a notch in the later part of a fight. 

Mayweather has more often coasted through the late rounds, well ahead and thoroughly out-classing his competition.

He will still be ahead late against Cotto, but with the scorecards closing and Cotto pushing hard to pull off the upset. It will be interesting to see what happens if the most talented fighter of his generation is legitimately pushed late for a change.  

22. Mayweather Will Throw a Lot of Punches When Necessary

Mayweather in more recent years has been primarily a one-two counter puncher, picking apart opponents with quick and accurate shots thrown from a place of nearly complete safety. 

He doesn't throw a lot of punches, but he doesn't really need to because he lands an astonishingly high percentage of the punches he does throw, while his opponents meanwhile land very, very few.

But a relentless pressure fighter with the skill set and natural talent of Cotto is going to find a way to start connecting on Mayweather if Mayweather cannot throw enough punches to discourage him.  

Mayweather has been a more aggressive puncher in the past, especially when he knows he has an opponent ready to go. Against Cotto he may need to open up more just to hang on and carry the day. 

23. Mayweather Will Win but It Will Be Closer Than Cotto-Pacquiao Was

In the end, Mayweather will remain undefeated and nobody will seriously question the decision. Mayweather will play the part of gracious victor and compliment Cotto for giving him such a tough challenge. It will have been a good night for boxing. 

But before the HBO broadcast is complete, there will already be Floyd-haters/Pacman fanboys online trumpeting the fact that Manny beat Cotto worse than Mayweather did and pointing to this as "proof" that Manny is the superior fighter. 

They will of course forget all about the fact that Mayweather easily beat Juan Manuel Marquez, who has given Pacquiao fits three times over eight years (and in my opinion, actually beat him twice). 

24. Cotto's Star Will Stay High in Defeat

Even in defeat, Cotto will have played his role perfectly providing excitement and some sorely missing competition into the narrative arc of Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Win or lose, the night could set him up perfectly for a big fight with fellow junior middleweight star Saul Alvarez.

A losing effort against Mayweather on Saturday night could even end up earning Cotto a return bout with Manny Pacquaio should the super fight between Pacquiao and Mayweather continue to be elusive. I'm going to hope this could only happen at 154 pounds. 

Should Cotto pull off the upset of this young century, he will jump up alongside Manny Pacquiao as the biggest boxing star in the United States. A rematch with Pacquaio would likely become the new fight that everybody wants to see.  

25. Pacman-Mayweather Will Remain a Hot Topic Headed into Pacquiao-Bradley

A month and a week after Mayweather-Cotto, Manny Pacquiao takes his turn in the ring against undefeated light welterweight champion Timothy Bradley.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. will have been in jail for over a week by the time this fight takes place, but his name will still be on plenty of lips. It will be inevitable that the media and a lot of fans will look right past Bradley and view him as simply a latest chapter in the building suspense of the Pacman-Mayweather Epic.

With Mayweather's fight fresh and Pacquiao's on the way, it will be a familiar scene, with so much Manny-Floyd talk going on that Bradley will end up getting at least partially over-looked in the build up.

And that's why I'll be back a month or so from now, explaining why overlooking the diminutive Desert Storm might just be a very big mistake.